Council Chairman tweets support for MP under pressure over Kingsmill video

Council Chairman Stephen McCann tweets support for MP under pressure over Kingsmill video

The Chairman of Fermanagh and Omagh District Council Stephen McCann tweeted a message of support to disgraced Sinn Féin MP Barry McElduff following the West Tyrone politician’s decision to post a video on twitter on January 5 of him with a loaf of Kingsmill bread on his head, coinciding with the 42nd anniversary of the Kingsmill massacre.

Despite Mr. McElduff’s assertion that he “genuinely meant no offence” by the video, his actions were branded by Sinn Féin’s northern leader Michelle O’Neill as “ill-judged and indefensible.” She suspended him for three months, saying his actions have “caused hurt and pain to the victims of Kingsmill.”

Ten Protestant workmen were shot dead by an IRA gang after their minibus was stopped near the County Armagh village of Kingsmill on January 5, 1976 – an eleventh man, Alan Black, survived despite being seriously injured.

Taking to twitter, the Sinn Féin Council Chairman, who last year told this newspaper he would not “go down the road of condemning” the Enniskillen bomb, another IRA atrocity, tweeted: “Have known @BarryMcElduff for many years. He works extremely hard for ALL in our community. Always the first man to stand with those in hardship & would never intentionally offend anyone.”

Have known @BarryMcElduff for many years. He works extremely hard for ALL in our community. Always the first man to stand with those in hardship & would never intentionally offend anyone.

He also changed his twitter profile photograph to one of him and Mr. McElduff. Fermanagh south Tyrone MLA Colm Gildernew, who was co-opted to replace his sister Michelle in June 2017, also tweeted his support to Mr. McElduff.

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